Page 47 of Lion's Share
I gripped the edge of the counter and tried to focus on her actual words instead of the uninvited thoughts bleeding through into my brain. “I lit some candles and went to bed early,” I said, which was technically true, even if I’d spent most of the night listening for noises that shouldn’t be there.
Agent Morse nodded, still typing. “Any unusual sounds? Strange lights in the sky? Anything out of the ordinary besides the power outage?”
She’s hiding something. The boyfriend was there — Nancy Petterson reported that he left his cottage on her property soon after the power outage began, and he didn’t return until late this morning. Why lie about something so trivial unless there’s more she doesn’t want us to know?
The mental voice was getting stronger, clearer. I could practically hear Agent Morse thinking, and it was taking all my concentration not to react to thoughts she hadn’t actually spoken aloud.
“Nothing unusual,” I managed, praying I looked completely guileless and not at all like someone in possession of far more information than she should. “Just a quiet night without electricity. I mean, without streaming services or even a functional phone, it’s not as if there was much I could do.”
Dr. Rosenthal arrives tomorrow. If we don’t have something concrete by then, she’s going to take over the investigation entirely. And Sonya Rosenthal doesn’t have any patience for small-town cutesiness.
Yikes. Dr. Sonya Rosenthal — whoever she was — sounded like she’d be a significant upgrade from Agent Morse in terms of being a problem for Silver Hollow. The last thing we needed was someone with less patience and more authority sniffing around, turning up God only knows what.
I realized Agent Morse was still talking and forced myself to tune back in to her actual words.
“…appreciate your cooperation, Ms. Lowell. If you think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to call.” She handed me another business card, identical to the one she’d given me before.
What, did she think I’d managed to lose the first one sometime between now and then? Or did she have a quota for how many she needed to give out?
“Of course,” I said, accepting the card with fingers that I hoped weren’t visibly trembling.
After she left, I sank onto the stool behind the counter and tried to process what had just happened. My telepathic episodes appeared to be getting stronger, because I’d definitely picked up far more this time than during our first encounter. And if Agent Morse’s thoughts were accurate, we were about to face a much bigger problem than a couple of FBI agents asking pointed but polite questions.
Dr. Sonya Rosenthal was coming to Silver Hollow.
And somehow, I didn’t think she would be nearly as easy to deflect.
I was just locking up the store when Ben appeared, looking slightly out of breath.
“Please tell me you haven’t eaten dinner yet,” he said, and I shook my head. We hadn’t discussed any concrete plans for tonight, although I’d assumed he would reach out at some point and was feeling kind of annoyed that he hadn’t.
“I was thinking about picking up some takeout from Molly’s Corner,” I told him, my tone probably brisker than it needed to be. “I just assumed we weren’t going to do anything since I hadn’t heard from you.”
That comment was way more passive-aggressive than I tended to be, but I really hadn’t been looking forward to spending the night in that big house all by myself. Yes, the griffin seemed to be looking out for me, and the power had been rock-solid all day. All the same, I didn’t think it too out of line to hope that Ben would be there to provide some moral support.
It seemed he had more important things on his mind than my tone, because he didn’t even seem to notice. “Linda Fields just called an emergency town meeting — Nancy told me about it.” His mouth twisted, although I thought the shift in expression was all about Linda, not Nancy. Like me, Ben didn’t have a lot of patience for Ms. Fields. “It sounds like Linda’s using last night’s power outage as ammunition for her mayoral campaign.”
Well, that was just great. After Agent Morse’s visit and the revelation about Dr. Sonya Rosenthal’s impending arrival, the last thing I wanted to deal with was Linda Fields’ grandstanding about municipal electrical issues she had no hope of understanding, much less fixing.
To be fair, no one who worked at the power company could have fixed them, either, since we were dealing with interdimensional problems here, but still.
“When and where?” I asked, even though I already knew I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“Six o’clock at City Hall. Which gives us about fifteen minutes.”
I glanced longingly in the direction of Molly’s Corner, where I could practically smell the French dip sandwiches calling my name. “I don’t suppose we could skip it?”
“We could,” Ben said, although he sounded reluctant, and I knew bailing out wasn’t really an option, “but I have a feeling Linda’s going to use any absence as evidence that people don’t care about Silver Hollow’s ‘infrastructure crisis.’”
I could practically hear the air quotes around the last two words.
He might not have been in town for very long, but he sure had Linda’s number. “Okay, fine,” I said. “But I’m buying us both dinner afterward.”
And this thing had better not go very long, I added mentally. Molly’s stayed open until eight o’clock on weekdays, so technically, we should have enough time.
I hoped.
Ben sent me a sympathetic smile. “Deal.”
